June 13th, 2012
In the hope of boosting construction and the NSW housing market, the lovely Mike Baird in his new state budget has opened up an extra $8,000 for new home owners on new homes only, offering a total first home buyer grant of $15,000. But it's a case of double or nothing. The flip side is that anyone buying an existing house lucks out as the $7,000 first home buyer grant, ... Read more
June 6th, 2012
In 1952 the average middle aged women's waist measured 28 inches and the average calorific intake was 1818 a day, at least 1,000 of which were burned off doing the housework. Today, a middle-aged women's waistline measures 34 inches, she consumes an average of 2,178 calories a day and instead of lugging around a heavy vacuum a robot does the hard work for her. So says a survey ... Read more
June 1st, 2012
Patrick from the Appliances Online team recently became the proud owner of a new Whirlpool 6.5kg Sports Washing Machine, and he couldn't be happier! "It's super-fast – the 15 minute cycle is so useful!" It may be true that you can wear your underpants four times without washing, but if your washing machine can clean them in only 15 minutes, why not treat yourself to a clean pair ... Read more
May 30th, 2012
Freida Cocks is 93 years old today. Born in Kurow in the desolate deep south of New Zealand's South Island, Freida has witnessed the invention of every modern home appliance since her birth in 1919. As a child nothing in her house was electric, let alone automatic. In the 1920s in remote NZ her principal home-keeping chore was gathering firewood, an essential energy source for cooking and ... Read more
May 28th, 2012
As the Laura Star disappears, awake she sheds a silent tear A blood red dawn begins to rise, and reflects the fear in Rinnai's eyes, For through old promises to Omega She has sealed her Bromic's demise. (Have you read part one?) The brave little kettle shouts out his warning As Bromic dives for his Sharp sword, The piercing whistle Brevilles out through the morning 'Til St George slays Morphy and the blood starts to pour. Rinnai looks Delonghingly as ... Read more
May 10th, 2012
Appliances are so awesome it's no wonder that they should inspire gadgets. Even so, how much does one really enjoy ironing? Enough to be woken up by an iron every morning? Apparently, some people do love ironing that much. We're not sure if the alarm sounds anything like the steam-puff created in the act of ironing or the click of a thermostat reaching temperature, but this "creative" alarm ... Read more
May 10th, 2012
In summer, doing the laundry is as easy as dropping your clothes in the washing machine, waiting for the cycle to end, and sticking them out on the line. After just a short time in the sun, you have clean and dry clothes. What could be simpler? Well, I've got news for you: Winter is coming No, that's not an unnecessary Game of Thrones reference (well it is, but ... Read more
May 8th, 2012
Not Generation Y, apparently. A new national survey has found that almost half of Gen Yers would rather pass their delicate dirty laundry to dry cleaners than hand wash it themselves. The figure - established in Canstar Blue's latest washing machine survey - is four times that of baby boomers, who are more willing to use a bit of elbow grease. Nor does the expense incurred through dry cleaners bother ... Read more
May 7th, 2012
Front loaders and top loaders have been the latest appliances under consumer scrutiny as part of Canstar Blue's most satisfied customer survey. Electrolux cleaned up the competition for the most satisfied customers award for front loader washing machines in front of Samsung, LG, Bosch, Fisher & Paykel, Simpson and Whirlpool. The brands were pitched against each other in categories including value for money, ease of use, noise, design, ... Read more
May 3rd, 2012
A new gadget called Twine can get appliances to text, tweet and e-mail you. For those with un-smart appliances, you know, the ordinary kind of oven that doesn't count the calories of the the food it's cooking, or the fridge which won't tell you when the milk is off, then Twine will bridge the gap from dumb to smart. Say it has been left on top of the ... Read more
April 26th, 2012
A genius marketer has been discovered touting the “magical and mysterious” properties of their clothes dryer. Available right now for sale on something called “Ebay”, this apparently innocuous Fisher & Paykel whitegood has a fairly amazing pedigree. Not only does it have the aforesaid magical powers, it has also doubled for Edward James Olmos on Battlestar Galactica and dated a prominent (albeit pint-sized) Australian game-show host. Fairly awesome qualities ... Read more
April 25th, 2012
A row over a washing machine and a dryer has put a North American woman in hospital after being stabbed in the back. The report in Longview's local rag said that the victim had visited a friend for "dinner and drinks" on Tuesday night. By 2am a fight broke out between the two middle aged women over ownership of the laundry appliances. It ended with one woman using ... Read more
March 23rd, 2012
In this fast-paced modern world where even the fridge is online, what is the point of steam? After all, the Age of Steam was way back in the 19th century, and today you'll only find useful steam-powered gadgets in the imaginations of steampunk artists, right? Wrong. While it is no longer commonly used to power devices such it was during the Industrial Revolution, steam still has an important place ... Read more
March 12th, 2012
The smart washing machine knows when to separate your whites from darks, but will it find the missing sock? There's the fridge that tells you when you're low on milk, the oven that counts calories for you, and now there's a washing machine that knows what type of material it's cleaning. NXP Semiconductors, headquartered in The Netherlands, has recently unveiled a Smart Washer that can read information about ... Read more
March 8th, 2012
This morning I woke up to the sound of a month's worth of rain pounding upon my roof. "How annoying," I said to myself, peeking out the window at the grey wasteland that used to be my backyard. "Couldn't the end of the world have waited until after I saw Radiohead?" NSW is currently experiencing the wettest month on record, so wet in fact that Warragamba Dam (which ... Read more